AMES: Romney WIns; Huckabee In Second  —  Gov Mitt Romney won the 2007 Ames straw poll, receiving 4516 votes, or 31%.  —  In a surprise, Gov. Mike Huckabee finished second with 2587 votes at 18.1%  —  11. John Cox with 41 votes.  —  10. John McCain with 101 votes.  —  9. Duncan Hunter with 174 votes.

Warm-mongers and cheeseburger imperialists  —  Something rather odd happened the other day.  If you go to NASA's Web site and look at the "U.S. surface air temperature" rankings for the lower 48 states, you might notice that something has changed.  —  Then again, you might not.

How the Fight for Vast New Spying Powers Was Won  —  For three days, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down.  "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken …

Hizbollah buys frontier land to attack Israel  —  Hizbollah is buying up large tracts of land owned by Christians and other non-Shias in southern Lebanon as the militant group rebuilds its defences in preparation for a new war with Israel, The Sunday Telegraph has been told.

Greenhouse Simplicities  —  We in the news business often enlist in moral crusades.  Global warming is among the latest.  Unfortunately, self-righteous indignation can undermine good journalism.  Last week's NEWSWEEK cover story on global warming is a sobering reminder.

Confessions of a BBC liberal  —  The BBC has finally come clean about its bias, says a former editor, who wrote Yes, Minister  —  In the past four weeks there have been two remarkable changes in the public attitude to the BBC.  The first and most newsworthy one was precipitated …

The Sacrifices of Albania's 'Sworn Virgins'  —  A Rockville Filmmaker Tells Of an Old Custom That Both Liberates and Limits Women  —  When the Albanian journalist and author Elvira Dones was traveling in the mountains of northern Albania, she asked for directions from someone she thought …

Local Minister, Helper Charged With Assault  —  Flowers, Bassitt Allegedly Dragged Girl Behind Van  —  SAN ANTONIO — A local minister and one of his assistants Friday were charged with aggravated assault in connection with a Nueces County dragging incident.

New Iraq report to warn of attack  —  The Bush administration is finishing a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that paints a sobering picture of a mature civil war unlikely to be snuffed out through political progress, according to officials involved in the report's preparation.